FIH Congress: Asia, Europe in slugfest for control of global hockey

The battle to seize control of world hockey has turned into a full blown Euro-Asia conflict in the wake of the mid-term departure of India's Narinder Batra from the leadership of the International Hockey Federation (FIH), whose new head will be elected on Saturday (5 November) through an online Congress. Restive after losing control for the first time in FIH’s history in 2016, Europe is striving to close ranks to back Belgium’s ex-skipper Marc Coudron against Asian Hockey Federation’s Chief Executive Officer, the Pakistan-born Mohammad Tayyab Ikram of Macau, who is a sitting member of the FIH Executive Board. The election for a two-year Presidentship of the FIH has been forced by the resignation of Batra, who in 2016 became the first non-European to take control of the world body with the overwhelming support from African and Pan-American hockey associations who sought to end one continent’s stranglehold on power. The routine term for FIH’s President is four years, but the newly elected chief will serve out the remaining period of the last term before regular elections are held in the Olympic year 2024. In world hockey, an Asia versus Europe conflict has always been simmering under the surface, and Europe has held sway in the game’s governance from the inception of the FIH. Even when India and Pakistan were two powerhouses in global competitions, the administration was always in the firm grip of European officials. The Asians often complained that even the changes in the game’s rules were seen to be suiting the Europeans. Asia’s supremacy on the field saw a decline after West Germany won the 1972 Munich Olympic title, which was the first won by a non sub-continental team since 1920 that came before India surfaced in global hockey competitions at the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928. After Pakistan’s triumph in the 1994 World Cup at Sydney, the two sub-continental nations did not even come close to stamping their authority in the two elite competitions - the Olympics or the World Cup. The closest an Asian team came close to a gold medal was when a new emergent power, South Korea’s men gave defending champions The Netherlands a tough run in the final showdown at the 2000 Sydney Olympics before losing through a golden goal. The South Korean women too had a fruitful run in global events in the 90s, but fell short of climbing atop the pedestal. Founded in 1924, the International Hockey Federation remained a Europe-centric organisation for 92 years before the global body elected a non-European to head it in the winter of 2016. A century of European monopoly of the top position in the FIH executive was set to continue when Spaniard Leandro Negre, a former Olympian goalkeeper, held charge. Nerge’s re-election for a third term, however, ran into a deadlock due to the organisation’s own rules and suddenly the international federation had to look around for a new president. That is when Batra came into the frame, his candidature bolstered by the green-bucks that India had been providing to the FIH. While Batra polled 68 votes, David Balbirnie of Ireland (29 votes) and Australian Ken Read (13 votes) failed to garner enough votes to take the contest to the second round of voting. Five years later, in a delayed FIH’s election Congress, organised online for the first time, Batra scrapped through in his re-election bid with a two-vote victory (63-61) against Coudron, whose campaign was endorsed by the European nations feeling uncomfortable at the administrative power’s shift to Asia. It became evident that several African national associations had opted to back Coudron in 2021, which seemed to have caught Batra by surprise and apparently it was the votes of the two newly-induced members that averted an embarrassment for the sitting President. It was this support from Africa, mostly from the French speaking nations, that has prompted Coudron to return to the contest for the post of FIH President, although he had publically declared his disinterest in another run after the 2021 defeat. Asian candidate Ikram spent a big part of his career in training coaches as FIH’s Master Coach before being handpicked to take reins of AHF as its CEO by Late Sultan Azlan Shah, a former King of Malaysia, when the continental body’s structure was changed to bring in a professional to run it. This was on the lines of the FIH, where the Secretary-General’s position was abolished and replaced by a full-time CEO. The FIH President’s election has once again turned into a needle contest, where 133 national associations have registered to cast their online votes. Europe has the maximum pool of 39 votes, but Asia is not far behind with 33 votes, including the impending re-admission of suspended Indonesia, which shall be taken up ahead of the elections and allows it a vote in the ensuing proceedings. Pan-American voting membership comprises 29 nations, followed by Africa’s 24 votes and eight from Oceania. The blurred battle-lines in Africa are turning this contest into a cliffhanger. With 67 being the majority mark, an Afro-Asian unity behind Ikram would have put him in the driver’s seat, but the split in African votes leaves the contest wide open, although Ikram is expected to poll more African votes than Batra did last year. A member of the International Olympic Committee’s Solidarity Commission, Ikram is reaping the rewards of his work with development projects in many small nations across the world. His opponent, Coudron is credited with leading Belgium’s emergence as a hockey powerhouse in the past decade when he headed the country’s hockey body. Even though the African Hockey Federation’s leadership has stood behind the Asian candidate in the past two FIH elections, the support is not as openly declared this time because Africa’s hockey chief, Seif Ahmed of Egypt is the Acting President of the FIH and required to maintain an impartial stance. A similar neutral public position of Pan-American Hockey Federation chief Alberto ‘Coco’ Budeisky has left the rival candidates to do their own canvassing. Eliciting Pan American votes is turning out to be a complex exercise, with some small hockey associations in the football obsessed nations showing their reluctance to wake up at four o’clock to cast an online vote. While Europe and Asia, the two major continents are overwhelmingly backing their respective candidates, a divided Africa and Oceania means the election contest will be won or lost by the candidate for whom a majority of Pan-American nations cast their votes. After the exit of Batra, India will be without a presence on the Executive Board of the FIH for the first time since 2014 when he was first elected to the Executive Board and rose to become President two years later. No Indian candidate has filed nominations for the Executive Board, where 10 candidates are in the contest for four positions. The number of Executive Board positions will be increased to five if Ikram, a current member of the executive, gets elected as the FIH President. 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